


The Path of Least Resistance

by Tuddelig



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Art Museums, Hurt/Comfort, offscreen rape/noncon, pre OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5070310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tuddelig/pseuds/Tuddelig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mission goes badly for Napoleon. He, Illya, and Gaby  deal with the fallout. Napoleon, in the process of working things out, steals some artwork and is a terrible, terrible influence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kind of late to this party. Saw the movie about a month ago and fell in love with these idiots.

It's not that Napoleon doesn't want to see Gaby and Illya.

It's just that—well. Napoleon's not a coward, but avoiding them after his release from medical had been the easiest solution to a problem Napoleon still hasn't managed to puzzle out.

Waverly is more than accommodating, with a gentle kindness and a soft touch Napoleon's not used to from handlers.

Maybe it's a British thing, or maybe it's just a Waverly thing. Either way Napoleon is grateful when Waverly nods, understanding.

“Yes. I think it best we take our time easing you back into the game.”

And he must seem some kind of pathetic then, because Waverly looks like he's about to do something awful, like reach out and pat him on the shoulder.

All tactful avoidance of the thing-Napoleon-never-wants-to-talk-about aside, it sits with him all wrong-- how damned nice Waverly is being. So he steps out of arms reach, turning away and pretending to examine the titles of the books that line the walls of the office.

“What happened was not you fault Solo.”

“I don't need to be handled with kid gloves,” Napoleon keeps his voice level, frowning as he concentrates too-hard on the red-spined tome of British Colonial History, hands balled into fists at his sides. “I'm fine. Give me something else to do. Just for a month or two.”

“As much as I think it would be best to take a short leave, I imagine leaving you with idle hands for any amount of time may end badly for the the major art museums of New York,” Waverly sighs. “And I’m rather fond of the Met.”

“I suppose we can find some solo work for you to do around the city. Have you ever given any thought to mentoring the newer recruits? ”

\-----

This is how it starts.

“How exactly is this going to make us better agents?” April Dancer squints at the massive Pollock, cocking her head to one side like the snarled mess of paint splatters is one of those magic eye prints and the new angle will reveal a hidden picture.

Mark Slate, who had been thoroughly skeptical of the modern sculpture exhibit, scowls at the floor as though he half-expects a workshop of starved artist to spring from the woodwork and declare that the worn, ceramic tiles underfoot are also art pieces.

Napoleon tries not to be disappointed by the fact that his baby spies are an awful pair of philistines. Worse, perhaps, than even Illya.

“I didn't bring you here to look at the artwork,” Napoleon slides his hands into his pockets as he strolls leisurely through the center of the spacious room, Dancer and Slate trailing behind him like awkward baby birds. “Although that was certainly part of the draw.”

“Tell me,” He points at Dancer, “how many security guards have we passed since we entered?”

“Five,” She says it with such authority that Napoleon is actually impressed: it's almost convincing. She's going to be a fantastic liar when Napoleon's through with her.

“You're guessing,” He tells her before turning to Slate: “And you, how many cameras?”

“None,” Slate frowns, looking confused. “I haven't seen any.”

“And that,” Napoleon says, “is because, in addition to the quiet frankly fantastic Pollock collection that Dancer has spent the past ten minutes glaring at, the MoMa also happens to be in possession of a security system that's better than most banks in the city.”

Napoleon brings them to a halt in front of the enormous, gorgeous blue-and-pink expanse of Claude Monet's Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond.

The soft smudges of the warm canvas give the impression of calm, still water reflecting fluffy gilded clouds that glow as if touched by the rays of the setting sun.

Napoleon always feels a strange sense of vertigo--like he could step through the canvas to slip his feet under the cool, mirrored surface of the water-- whenever he stands here in front of the massive panels.

He loves the painting like he loves all beautiful things—with an irrational, possessive itch in his fingers that can only be sated by touch.

“A security system not unlike those that you may be required to outsmart or outmaneuver in the line of duty,” He continues.

“I rather like this one,” He spreads his arms as if to embrace the Monet. “Tell me,if your mission was to extract this painting-- without detection-- how would you do it?”

They spend a pleasant afternoon sketching out how to steal a Picasso. Planning the best way to liberate a Matisse or or Rousseau. Plotting out how they might spirit away a van Gogh.

Napoleon is just about to congratulate himself for imparting a bit of culture in his students, pleased to see Dancer eyeing the Pollock with what looks to be genuine interest, before she goes and ruins the moment by saying, with every appearance of solemnity: “The only way I'd steal this one is if I were allowed to set it on fire afterward.”

Slate nods with equal seriousness.

“Hideous,” He agrees.

Napoleon stops himself short of a defense of Pollock's transformitive approach to painting when he sees Slate and Dancer exchange barely-there smirks.

They're trying to wind him up, the brats.

His reply dies on his tongue when Dancer points behind him in the crowd, asking: “Is this part of the lesson too? Noticing that we're being followed?”

Damn.

Napoleon turns to look, catching a flash of a bright, floral print dress—a tiny brunette with enormous, bug-eyed sunglasses—before Gaby disappears back into the crowd.

\--

Napoleon doesn't see her again for a month.

He's huddled next to the Frick Collection on the Upper East Side, smoking a cigarette meditatively as he scans the Sunday afternoon crowd milling past on the sidewalk and spilling over into central park.

It's late April, but New York has apparently only just gotten the memo that spring has sprung, and people are a little wild with it. The woman are wrapped in bright, beautiful bold colors and they flit past like a school of tropical fish.

The vines twisting around the wrought iron bars that enclose the cloistered garden of the museum are only beginning to unfurl vividly green foliage, lush and verdant after the long, dreary winter. He leans into them for a beat, mesmerized by the way the smoke from his cigarette curls up like a snake through the light filtering in between the leaves.

Napoleon is just about to turn and enter the museum when he pauses, finding a familiar and unexpected face staring back at him from across the street.

He smiles, and Gaby approaches, stalking over on a pair of gorgeous Dior stilettos he remembers fondly from the Istanbul affair.

She is wrapped in a camel trench coat, her hair piled high in a beehive and her eyes hidden behind yet another oversized pair of sunglasses.The sun hits her hair , bringing out the warmth in it and making her look like she could have just stepped out of a Titian painting.

She is lovely, and the sight of her makes something hurt in his chest like a bruise.

He's missed her.

Then reality catches up and he frowns at her—something must be wrong. He is supposed to be running a simple pick-up job alone. She is supposed to be in Japan, doing something highly classified Napoleon should know absolutely nothing about. He hasn't spoken to her in weeks, but he likes to keep tabs on her and Illya both.

Her approach is a little uncertain, as if she is unsure of her welcome.

“Surprise leibling,” The hesitant smile melts into a wide grin, playacting as she leans in to dot a kiss to his cheek. “You could look a little more excited to see your wife.”

“Back from your trip early, dear?” He asks, a little louder than is strictly necessary before he leans in to whisper in her ear:“What are you doing here Gaby?”

“I thought you might like some company,” She wavers, and it's a look doesn't sit well with Napoleon, like Waverly's unsettling kindness.

“But if you prefer to be alone I understand--”

“Join me,” Napoleon cuts her off, holding out an arm for her to loop her own through.

\--

As far as Napoleon is concerned, all clandestine meetings should take place in art galleries.

But it does have its drawbacks--they're out in public, so it's not like he can ask Gaby any of the million and one questions he has for her, like how her missions are going or if she still thinks Parmesan cheese smells like feet. If she still finds time to trade her designer dresses for coveralls and plunge her hands, elbow-deep into the guts of engines. If she's ok. If she understands why Napoleon has been avoiding her.

So instead he flirts. Outrageously. Because he can and because it's fun and because, going into his self-imposed exile, he hadn't realized how much he would miss this. How much he could miss her. It feels good, the solid, warm weight of her at his side.

Gaby rolls her eyes dramatically when Napoleon makes an off-color remark involving a gorgeously intricate 18th century Persian carpet.

“Now dear, stay in character,” He teases.

“This is me in character as your wife,” She shoots back, deadpan, “wondering why I ever married such a ridiculous man.”

She digs her nails into his arm. 

They're the only thing about her that isn't perfectly, thoughtfully selected to project the image of a fashionable and carefree young woman of the city--short and a little ragged, smudged in something that looks suspiciously like motor oil .

Napoleon loves Gaby's hands.

\--

Gaby never makes an appearance at Napoleon's training sessions for Slate and Dancer again, but she shows up at his next mission, and the one after that too.

He knows Waverly's not sending her—not because he'd asked, but because he'd lifted her mission log from U.N.C.L.E's supposedly untouchable secure file archive. 

And, convenient as the shit security is for keeping tabs on Gaby and Illya, Napoleon should really talk to Waverly about that before someone less-well-intentioned finds their way into the system and all their collective secrets spill out into dangerous hands.

They're at the Met, fifteen minutes early for the drop and meandering through the sculpture hall when a member of the museum staff pokes her head into the gallery to announce: “I have a phone call for a Mr. Vaughn. Is there a Mr. Vaughn here?”

Napoleon and Gaby exchange a look.

It's one of the fail-safes set up to get new and pertinent information to agents while they're on mission, out of direct contact and unable to break cover. A call for Mr. Smith means abort mission immediately. A call for Mrs. Jones means they've been made. A call for Ms. Graham means hostiles en route.

Gaby leans in to kiss his cheek.

It's the first time anyone's kissed him in weeks—the first time he's let anyone since...well, since.

Napoleon almost shivers, feels the weight of it on his skin even after she's moved her head to the crook of his neck like a lover, whispering so only he can hear: “I can cover this. Go. I'll be five minutes behind.”

Napoleon doesn't run as he makes his way to the street, but it is a close thing.

Because a call for Mr. Vaughn means agent in distress.

\--

Of course the agent in distress is Illya.

“Cowboy,” He blinks down at Napoleon—god, Napoleon had almost forgotten how tall he was-- with what passes for surprise for one as terminally stoic as Illya. A slight widening of those big blue eyes. A parting of the lips.

He's clutching at his side in way that suggests he's hurt and staring at Napoleon like he doesn't quite believe that the other man is really standing in front of him. The dark turtleneck makes it difficult to tell how much blood Illya's lost and Napoleon's fingers are aching to check for himself that Illya's not going to bleed out right there.

“What are you doing here--” Illya furrows his brow and, ah, Napoleon thinks, there's that familiar anger.

“No time to catch up Peril,” Napoleon drags Illya down by the collar to crouch behind the closest desk as a bullet whizzes overhead.

They make it out of the building and into an alley, where Napoleon shoves them both toward a little black Citroen screeching to a halt at the far end of the street, Gaby at the wheel.

“The bug's been planted on the target,” Illya tells Gaby as he and Napoleon slide into the backseat.

Napoleon tugs off his jacket and throws it at Illya as they peel out into the afternoon traffic: “There--so you don't get blood all over the upholstery.”

Napoleon watches as Gaby catches Illya's eye in the rear-view mirror for a brief second before her face goes carefully blank. She pushes her sunglasses up her nose and the accelerator pedal to the floor and they’re off.

It's so disorientingly familiar--Gabby maneuvering them through bumper-to-bumper traffic with ease while Illya glares his disapproval at Napoleon like he's gone and insulted the memory of both Illya's parents by finding the saddest human trafficking victim in the city and offering the pimp Illya's father's watch in exchange for sexual favors. 

So it takes until they're halfway up Park avenue for Napoleon's panic to set in.

Gaby's eyes flit between the road and the mirror. And Illya-- Illya just frowns at Napoleon some more.

And Napoleon thinks: oh shit. Oh Fuck.

Because it strikes him that he's now trapped with the two people he's spent enormous amounts of time and energy avoiding, dangerously close to having a conversation that he would happily jump out of a moving car to avoid.

Which is how Napoleon winds up slogging his way through Midtown on foot. Because, along with his dignity, he'd left his wallet in the car, tucked in the jacket pressed against the knife wound in Illya's side.

Napoleon forgoes petty theft for cabfare in favor of a long walk home, trying to shake the image of Illya's pale face, momentarily slack with surprise and a surprising measure of hurt as Napoleon made his escape at a convenient yellow light somewhere in midtown.


	2. Chapter 2

To Napoleon's unending horror, Waverly interprets his rolling out of a barely-moving vehicle as a cry for help. 

His complaints about this fall on deaf ears as he stands in his apartment’s tiny kitchen, making Gaby kartoffelsalat and rouladan as she watches, perched on a stool at the counter.

“This is terrible,” She tells him as she shoves another heaping forkful of potatoes into her mouth. It's her second helping. 

“You wound me, ” Napoleon forgoes pushing his food around with his knife to press a hand to his heart in mock agony. “So cruel.”

“You,” She stabs her fork into the air in his direction, “Are being an idiot, Solo. Waverly is doing his job. Making sure you're not going to do something stupid in the field—like jumping out of my car for no reason.”

He frowns, opening his mouth to reply before she cuts him off.

“No. You avoided me for weeks and then jumped out of my car like a crazy person. You do not have the higher ground here.”

“True,” With a shrug, Napoleon shoves his unfinished dinner in her direction, “but I'm not an awful cook.”

Gaby spears a bit of rouladan from his plate.

\--

As far as Napoleon is concerned, the only saving grace of the entire half-hour he spends trapped in the mandatory evaluation is that Waverly's unnerving impulses to do things like pat him on the shoulder have been eclipsed by the kind of irritated exasperation that usually proceeds statements like 'don't steal the fucking art, Solo' or 'I swear to god Solo, stop seducing all of my secretaries'.

So at least Napoleon's back in familiar territory there.

“Does Gaby know what happened?” Napoleon finds himself asking Waverly at the tail end of the conversation.

This had mostly consisted of Napoleon throwing monosyllabic grunts and offended looks in Waverly's direction in response to questions read off of a checklist by a stern-looking, medical grunt in a white coat.

As the ordeal dragged on, it dawned on Napoleon that these were all antithetic, yet maddeningly recursive ways of asking the same question—if he's alright. Like Napoleon would somehow manage to find the answer if Waverly accidentally stumbles across the right wording.

“No,” Waverly peers over the tops of his glasses, curious at this change in pace. “Ms. Teller has not been briefed on the specifics of that mission. Why do you ask?”

Napoleon's been thinking about it a lot, how she keeps popping in to check in on him—crashing his missions and showing up at his apartment like a hungry alley cat, not leaving until he feeds her. She hasn’t said anything and she’s just as mean as ever, but there's a protective element in it that makes him certain that she must know, somehow.

Part of him hates the idea of it. Detests the loss of control that comes with someone else knowing a secret that he’d prefer to take six feet under.  Napoleon is starting to wonder if it’s less like shutting a door and throwing away the key than it is trying to keep something caustic and fluid trapped between his clutched hands-- no matter what he does or how hard he tries, it will just keep spilling over, slipping between his fingers and getting all over fucking everything  

But it’s Gaby. The unshakable little chop-shop mechanic who’d outplayed the C.I.A’s best and the K.G.B.’s brightest. She’s cradled the world in her hands, so surely it’s not such a bad place for Napoleon to be.

“No reason,” Napoleon says, examining his nails as if bored with the conversation. “Can I go now?”

In the end, the only fallout is that Waverly has Napoleon temporarily banned from active field duty.

It's beyond ridiculous. If they're not going to put him to work, then what's the point in staying?

Joining U.N.C.L.E. has significantly loosened the arthritic death-grip that the C.I.A. had on Napoleon's balls, and U.N.C.L.E. seems happy to let him have free reign to wander, seemingly at will. He suspects that this is meant to build trust, but at the core of it, Napoleon can't shake the feeling that U.N.C.L.E. is capable of just as much apathetic cruelty as the army or the C.I.A. ever was.

And maybe if he was as young and dumb as he'd been in his early army days, he'd let himself be tethered by the assurances that his work at U.N.C.L.E. was worthwhile--that they were actually changing anything.

But  the reality is that it would be the easiest thing in the world to just disappear. It would be so easy—Waverly's left the gate wide open.

Instead, Napoleon feeds Gaby and takes his baby spies (philistines) to the Guggenheim and the Rubin. Has them steal fortunes and fortunes worth of priceless treasures in the abstract. Until he's stone-cold certain they could really do it, and half-tempted to tell them to bring him a Monet, just to see what would happen.  
\--

Their next lesson is such a delightful exercise in schadenfreude that Napoleon decides to congratulate himself with two fingers of scotch—neat--as he watches Slate from the corner of his eye. The poor kid is laughably out of his depth, trying to charm information out of a gorgeous middle-aged blonde Napoleon had pushed him toward.

The Hickory is packed this time of night on a Friday, and the music twists through the dim air of the club like cigarette smoke—so dark and sensual and alive that it feels like he could reach out and brush the pulse of it under his fingertips. Dancer sits beside him at the bar, shoulders shaking with silent laughter as the middle-aged blonde says something to Slate. He turns such a bright shade of lobster-red that Napoleon thinks he might start buzzing, fluorescent and glowing like a neon sign.

“Don't laugh,” Napoleon tells her. “You're up next.”

Dancer, still trying not to giggle and wearing this stupid grin that's wider than the Hudson, lowers her forehead until it touches the bar, where she mumbles: “If we're being graded on a curve then I have nothing to worry about.”

“He really is pretty bad, isn't he?”

“I don't understand it. I once saw Slate kill three men with nothing but a pen, but tell him to flirt a little and,” she flaps one hand in Slates general direction, “that happens.”

Napoleon sips his drink and scans the room, looking for someone to turn Dancer loose on as he mulls over what piece of personal information her objective should be. It needs to be something harmless, but personal enough that the target would be reluctant to disclose it to a complete stranger.

Napoleon's eyes stop on a man standing a little off to the right side of the stage, about five feet behind Slate. He is turned away from the crowd as if to watch the band, and casually leaning with his shoulder against the wall in a way that makes his striking height less immediately evident.

The mellow buzz that's been humming along in the back Napoleon's head from the chance to drink his favorite scotch in one of his favorite bars while playing with his shiny new toys grinds to a halt.

He can't see the man's face, but Napoleon could pick Illya out of a crowd ten times this large by the set of those shoulders alone.

Then Napoleon has an idea.

“Dancer,” she is still resting her head on the bar, and Napoleon elbows her to get her to pay attention, “I have a job for you.”

It's impulsive, and probably a little cruel, but Napoleon consoles himself as he tosses his junior agent at Illya like a flash-bang grenade that, if nothing else, it will be an excellent learning experience for Dancer.

\--

Later that night, Gaby's disapproval with Napoleon becomes apparent when she keeps glaring at him. This despite the fact that he'd spent several hours tracking down her favorite kind of sauerkraut and had also made her spatzle.

“You should just talk to Illya,” she says. “You should not have done that.”

“And Illya should not be following me.”

Napoleon knows he's being childish, but as of late his life seems to have been twisted sideways, wrenching the helm from his grasp. There's so much he doesn't have control over and he hates it just like he'd hated squirming under the suffocating press of the C.I.A.'s thumb. 

Just like rolling out of the car, whether or not he talks to Illya is one little thing that he does have control over. Napoleon's damned if that isn't going to happen on his timeline. On his terms.

Napoleon's chewing on spatzle and trying to put this into words, trying to circumscribe the entire, amorphous geography of the sprawling thing, when Gaby's reply hits him like a gut punch.

“He thinks you blame him for what happened to you,” Gaby says so matter-of-fact that all of Napoleon's words die in the back of his throat. 

It takes him a few minutes and several aborted attempts to find any new ones. Because that's the stupidest thing he's heard all day, and he just spent the evening listening to Slate's terrible, terrible pick-up lines.

“What?” is what he finally manages to spit out.

“Because of the way you avoid him.,” She explains.

“I avoided both of you,” Napoleon points out and begins to clear the table if only for an something to occupy his hands.

Gabby watches him for a beat as he stacks dishes in the sink and busies himself cleaning up. One of her knees is drawn up to her chest and she rests her chin on it, her expression unreadable.

Out of all the people who have tried to help Napoleon—Waverly, the doctors and nurses who had fussed over him in medical, the terrible head-shrink U.N.C.L.E tries to bully him into talking to—she's the only one that actually gets it.

Because Gaby doesn't try to force him to talk about it or treat him like he's suddenly become fragile, breakable as fine, delicate bone-china. Just keeps showing up, mean as she ever was and a constant, immovable comfort at his side.

“You're thinking of running away,” she says. It’s not a question.

“Well,” He admits, leaning over her to gather up the remaining dishes, close enough to brush their arms together,“ I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't crossed my mind.”

“And you're actually considering it,” Gaby reaches out and lays a hand on his arm, staying him so she can watch his face.

“Would you run away with me, if I asked?” Curious, Napoleon sets the plates back down and rests that arm on the back of her chair instead, crouching so that they’re at eye-level.

He imagines what it would be like. Showing her his Paris or his Florence or his Barcelona. Taking her to the Grand Prix in Monaco so he could watch the way her face lights up as the cars zip past, sleek and growling and marvelous. Buying her something monstrous so she can steer them, reckless and too fast, across the continent. 

He'd stolen her once out of East Germany, after all. There was no reason he couldn't do it again.

Her reply comes immediately, without hesitation:“No.”

“As simple as that? We could go anywhere you want, you know. We could do anything. No one could stop us.”

“No,” Gaby shakes her head, flicking her fringe out of her eyes. “Here I am my own person. I can do good here--we can do good here.”

She crosses her arms and leans back against the wall, starring him down :“Would you stay, if I asked?”

When Napoleon doesn't reply, she elects to push past him and makes her way toward the living room, where Napoleon knows she'll put on one of his records and drink her way slowly through his liquor cabinet as she makes faces at his collection of books on modern art theory.

Honestly, she's as bad as his baby spies. Although he supposes that she, at least, has the excuse of being raised in a totalitarian state.

“Talk to Illya,” She calls back over her shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact time:
> 
> Napoleon's baby spies, April Dancer and Mark Slate, are characters from a spin-off series called "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E." The spin-off wasn't very well received and was cancelled after 29 episodes. I thought it seemed pretty cool, since it starred a badass lady spy who fought villains with names like 'Mistress Muffin" (played by actor Boris Karloff in drag) and apparently influenced future series like ALIAS. 
> 
> So Dancer and Slate aren't huge characters in this story, but I wanted to work in a little homage to the original Man From U.N.C.L.E universe.


	3. Chapter 3

Napoleon doesn't actually remember much of what happened. 

What he can remember—Illya scooping him off of a cold concrete floor, and getting sedated into drooling, compliant oblivion in medical so that the doctors could examine him—Napoleon tries not to turn over in his head too much, lest something goes necrotic.

But the worst part of it wasn't the indignity of the hospital bed or the way he still gets nightmares that leave him sweating and shaking and sick with it.

It's not even the one, disastrous time he'd tried to have sex afterward.

Because sex has never been a big deal for Napoleon. He'd always regarded it as something fun, but easy and for the most part meaningless. Tactile, Napoleon has always loved the electric thrill of discovering another body with his hands.

His own body is an alien thing to him now. He floats above it, feeling curiously hollowed out and disjointed from the geometry of his limbs.

He knows it's pointless to wish the past was any different. Mostly, he just wants for nothing to have changed. To still appreciate beauty where he finds it and to still want to reach out and and touch.

And that's the worst part, that he has changed. 

But Napoleon doesn't want to talk about that and today.

All the head-shrink wants to talk about Napoleon’s mother. 

If he ever again has to listen to some imbecile imply the root of all of his problems is his frigid, withholding mother Napoleon is going to go so nuclear that Illya's U.S.S.R friends take a break from freezing their asses off in goddamn Siberia long enough bomb everyone back into the stone age.

So Napoleon's mood as he leaves the weekly check-in could best be described as murderous, which is apparently the perfect expression to wear when one wants to make good progress across a lobby overflowing with a 5-o'clock crowd. 

He's almost at the door when Dancer and Slate jump out of fucking nowhere, cutting off his exit.

Napoleon needs to get the hell out of this building.

“Unless the two of you are hiding an expresssionist masterwork under Slate's pea coat, I'm not interested,” He smiles as he makes little shooing motions with his hands. “Teacher still loves you, but school's out for the day—sorry kids.”

He tries to push past them, but they do this awful, heart-rending thing with their eyes that stops him in his tracks,.the manipulative bastards. 

“Actually,” Dancer says. “That's kind of why we're here.”

“We need your help,” Slate adds.

\---

“So, just to be sure I have this right,” Napoleon digs his fingers into the bridge of his nose , unable to look at the two of them. “After I tasked you with seducing Kuryakin at the Hickory, you befriended him?”

“He can be very charming,” Slate says defensively, staring fixedly at Napoleon's kitchen table as Napoleon paces.

“It's surprisingly effective,” Dancer, seated beside Slate, nods in agreement before adding: “At that bar, if you hadn't been so busy sprinting for the backdoor, you would have seen it for yourself.”

“Effective enough for you two to just roll over and hand him classified information—stolen classified information?” Napoleon demands, raising an eyebrow.

A part of Napoleon is more than a little proud that his students have pulled off their first heist—and prouder still that they'd had the balls to steal from U.N.C.L.E, but right now that's eclipsed by the massive, exasperated wave of frustration that's rising like a tide in his chest. What had they been thinking?

To his credit, Slate looks chagrined. Dancer just looks pissed.

“We knew he was an U.N.C.L.E. agent by that point,” She says, meeting his gaze. “And then he said it had to do with you—that he was carrying out an external investigation into the mission that got you grounded.”

“We gave Kuryakin the file two days ago,” Slate says, miserable. “And then he disappeared—just dropped right off the radar.”

“You two are going to stay right here,” He says, jabbing his finger into the table. “I have a call to make.”

Gaby sounds a little fuzzy when she picks up the phone, like she's just woken up. Napoleon, with a glance at the clock , realizes that's probably the case.

“Gaby,” He smiles when she mumbles something into the phone that could be either 'hello' or something wonderfully colorful in German, “how's your Russian?”

\--

Under the hair-trigger temper, there's not a lot to Illya that's immediately or easily knowable.

Napoleon's relationship with the man has been an exercise in way-finding—long stretches over rough, and occasionally hostile terrain that are only rarely interspersed by little glimpses of the trail markers through the trees.

Napoleon’s collected them like souvenirs: The bone-dry sense of humor, all the more wonderful for its unexpectedness. The sweet tooth and that the way he likes to check up on his elderly neighbors. The way he looks at Gaby, sometimes, when he thinks no one is watching.

For most people—and as far as Napoleon can tell, that means everyone but himself and Gaby--Illya is best summed up by something Napoleon overheard once in passing at U.N.C.L.E: 'no one knows what Agent Kuryakin does when he goes home at night.'

“I love what he's done with the place,” Napoleon says after Gaby lets him in through the fire escape, having made up some sob story to get the tiny Russian landlady to let her in.

“It's very Illya,” She shrugs, and wanders off to poke around.

It's not a big apartment, but the lack of decoration and simplicity of the layout make it seem larger, the minimalist furnishings only serving to emphasize the mess of papers and maps tacked up on the far wall, interconnected by a web of dark string and covered in the tight scrawl of Illya's hand.

Napoleon sighs.

Apparently, what Agent Kuryakin does when he goes home at night is to methodically and systematically plot out the downfall of criminal enterprises in his free time. Napoleon supposes it's not really a surprise—there's only so many hours in a day that can be filled with intermittent fits of rage, attempting to convey a wide and complex range of emotions through scowling, and playing chess against yourself.

Scratch that—Napoleon thinks, moving closer to stand next to Gaby so that they can squint at the wall together—what agent Kuryakin does when he goes home at night is methodically and systematically plot out the downfall of criminal enterprises that have personally wronged Napoleon.

Gaby grabs Napoleon's arm hard enough to hurt—ignoring his indignant 'hey!' at the way she's wrinkling his suit jacket.

“This would not have happened,” She says, waving her free hand at Illya's vast wall of crazy like Napoleon had personally provided the tacks, “if you had just talked to him.”

“I don't want to disabuse you of the idea that my powers are persuasion verge on the superhuman,” Napoleon says as he leans forward to squint at the map, “but Illya is a law unto himself when he's made up his mind about something.”

The entirety of France has been blanketed in a chimeric mix of cyclic and English, save for a small central region, thrice circled in thick dark ink that had been pressed so hard to the paper that it's torn in two places. 

Gaby finally lets go of his arm and reaches out to poke the center of the circle.

“We need to go to Paris,” she says.

\---

The flight over is a nightmare.

Napoleon has this habit of picking up little mannerisms from other people: his wink is the ghost of an old, long-buried army buddy. The way he smooths back his hair with the palm of his hand is a souvenir of the first time he fell head-over-heels in love, lifetimes ago, one summer in Barcelona.

And on the miserable flight from New York to Paris, he can't stop tapping out twitching beats with his fingertips. It's how he knows he's angry—because the finger thing is from Illya.

Somewhere over the dark Atlantic a warm, small hand finds his and he stops.

“I thought you were asleep.” He tells Gaby, who hasn't moved her head from where it's pillowed against the wall of the plane, looking at him from under her half-lidded eyes.

“He shouldn't have gone off alone.”

“We'll find him,” she says, giving his hand a gentle squeeze, surprisingly sweet.

Gaby closes her eyes again: “Now stop fidgeting and go to sleep before I stab you with one of these silver airline forks.”

Napoleon does.

\--

The four hours of shut-eye make it marginally easier when they hit the ground running, meeting with a few of Napoleon's contacts from his less-scrupulous days as an art thief and trying to find anyone who's seen an oversized, blond Russian gone berserker.

Noon finds Gaby and Napoleon in a small morgue, starring down at a dead man who has been beaten so badly Napoleon almost doesn't recognize him.

Napoleon’s first, crazy thought just before Gaby pulls back the sheet is that the dead man would be Illya. 

And when the loose shroud falls back, for one terrible moment,  it is Illya. 

Napoleon's heart sinks. Time seems to expand out like a baloon, until the seconds drag by and the moment stretches into an eon. 

It feels like he's dragging his arm up through deep water when he reaches out to touch the face. But it's not quiet right. There's something off about the face.

It takes him a second before he sees that the scar by the eye is missing. Then he notices that the hair is more ashy brown than golden and the man had been tall, but can’t have been larger than 6’2”.

Napoleon lets out a huge breath he hadn't realized he was holding as time folds back in on itself until it's skipping by at a normal pace again. 

“He apparently fell from a great height,” Gaby says, examining the medical report. “Several times.”

“Broken ribs, a fractured skull, a broken tibia....the list goes on,”she reads off as Napoleon stares down at the man on the table. “They weren't able to identify the body.”

“I recognize the hands,” Napoleon says, pointing to the left hand. Even badly scraped, Napoleon remembers the constellations of scar tissue across the knuckles and the missing fingertip of the pinkie.

The man's name was Arthur Bullion and three months ago he helped hold Napoleon down with bruising, unrelenting grip. Napoleon would recognize those hands anywhere.

He feels...numb, mostly. Dizzy with relief that it isn't Illya lying there. Unable to consolidate the memory of the man with the sight of the cold, blue and white fingers stiffened into claws at the sides of the body.

And it's weird. It's so weird.

Because the only one who's ever had Napoleon's back is Napoleon. He's used to that. What he's not used to is another person balancing the books for him, taking payment in blood.

It makes him uncomfortable, but mostly Napoleon is just angry. Because it could have just as easily been Illya lying on the table. 

“He shouldn't be doing this alone,” Napoleon says, still staring at the corpse's hands.

Gaby draws the sheet up to cover the corpse. “Illya doesn't make mistakes.”

“Because going rogue to single-handedly beat his way through the criminal underworld wasn't a mistake,” Napoleon says flatly, careful to avoid brushing the table as Gaby wheels it back into the drawer. He should probably help, but can't bring himself to touch even the edge of the gurney.

“That man,” Gaby says as she slams the morgue drawer and fastens the latch with a satisfying click, “deserved every blow dealt to him, and more.”

It's the only answer he gets from her.

–

They find the next body deep under the guts of the city, in the inky unending night of the catacombs.

It is only when Gaby gives a surprised little gasp from over his shoulder that Napoleon realizes the body is not a body at all—while undoubtedly on the threshold of death's door, the man is still very much alive.

Napoleon hisses, sweeping the beam of his flashlight over the brutal scene. 

“My brief acquaintance with our new friend did not leave me with the most favorable impression,” Napoleon says. “But this seems a particularly nasty way to go: slowly and painfully. Alone in the dark.”

Gabby crouches by the man's side, careful of the pooling blood.

If it were someone else, Napoleon might feel more pity. 

“This man, you recognize him too?” Gabby asks, examining the dying man's face.

Napoleon nods: “Two down, one to go.”

“We could try to wake him up,” She suggests, looking up to Napoleon.

“No need,” Napoleon offers her a hand up, ushering her to one side as he draws his gun. “I know where Peril is going to be next.”

The echoing retort of the mercy shot seems to bounce endlessly into the darkness around them.

–

Napoleon has always loved Paris. Even under the circumstances, he can't help but bask in it, just a little. 

Gaby appears to be less than dazzled by her first trip to the city of light.

“Shouldn't we be finding Illya?” Gabby asks, impatient as they stroll arm in arm down the Champs-elyse. “Why are we wasting time behaving like tourists?”

“I recognized the man's clothes as the uniform of one of the major underground art-smuggling networks,” He tells her as they peer into the window of a patisserie, bright with delicate pyramids of pastel-colored macaroons and fussy arrangements of small chocolates. “There is a major auction tonight, if my contact is to be believed.”

“And that's where we'll find Illya.”

“That's where we'll find Illya's third target,” Napoleon corrects, “Though I'm almost certain our Peril will follow.”

“In the meantime, we have a few hours to kill,” He continues, watching the way Gaby eyes the delicacies of the bakeries display window with rapacious curiosity.

“You've spent most of your life trapped behind a wall,”He says. “Let me show you my Paris.”

“If we're going to wait, I’m getting one of those,”Gaby says, pointing to a vividly orange macaroon.

–

“You know this is nothing more than a glorified radio tower,” Gaby tells him as they look out over the organic, spiraling arms of the city from the top of the tour d’Eiffel.

“You,” Napoleon accuses her, bumping their shoulders together as they rest their forearms on the railing, “are utterly devoid of even the tiniest shred of romance.”

“I liked the orange cookie,” Gaby admits, adding: “You should take me to a boutique next.”

“Oh?”

“One of us should be at the auction. The target will recognize you,” She says, clinical and practical as always. “If I'm going undercover as a potential buyer, I will need to look the part.”

“You're not going undercover--” He starts before she turns her head a little to glare at him over the tops of  her glasses.

“I do not need your go-ahead.”

“I am well aware. What I meant is that you're not going undercover as a buyer,” He explains with a smirk. “I've got a few pieces stashed nearby that will suit our purposes well, if no one's found them and raided the lot. You're going undercover as a seller.”

Gaby turns back to look out over Paris, laid out in concentric circles far below them. Tries to hide her surprise by turning her attention to the lazy coils of the Seine wending through the city a snake, lazy and warm in the sun.

Napoleon thinks that Gaby's had to fight her entire life for recognition. To be seen as anyone other than her father's daughter or a particularity efficient mechanic—she's still not used to anyone seeing her as a force unto herself.

Napoleon loves that she doesn’t particularly care--that Gaby knows her own worth and that’s all that matters to her.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love the pleased, barely-there smile that curls up the corner of her mouth as they make their way to the elevators. 

“Even better,” She says.

\--

“I do not think I like your Paris,” Gaby sneezes from the dust as they pick their way through the stuffy passageway to Napoleon’s hidden safehouse. 

“You’ll like what’s inside. The one benefit of this much dust is that we’d be able to tell if anyone had broken in,” Napoleon says, trying the door. It doesn’t budge. 

“There’s a trick to it,” he tells Gaby, who cocks an eyebrow, unimpressed.

Napoleon tries ramming his shoulder into it a few times before finally standing back a few feet to kick it. It gives a little, so Napoleon puts all his muscle into the next one. This finally does it, but the door gives a little easier than Napoleon expected.

“Neat trick,” Gaby says as he stumbles awkwardly into the storage room, sprawling to a halt on a fortuitously placed persian rug. 

God, Napoleon thinks that his head-shrink would probably just about piss himself in excitement if he ever learns that Napoleon only ever falls in love with people who are mean to him. 

Gaby offers him a hand up, before turning so that the pool of light from her flashlight sweeps the room. Her mouth drops open a soft ‘o’ of surprise.

The room is not overly large, but it’s jammed from floor to ceiling with enough artwork to fill a small museum. The room had originally been meant for the pieces Napoleon had loved best, those he had been unwilling to part with after their liberation, but had become a permanent home for the eclectic mix pieces he’d been trying to fence just before his capture.  
.  
“No one else has ever been in here but me,” He tells Gaby. “Feel free to have a look around. I'm partial to the Matisse for this auction, but let me know if anything catches your eye.”  
\--

“I'll be fine,” She says later, checking herself over one last time in the vanity mirror of their hotel room.

Tonight Gaby is an heiress, auctioning a prized piece of her late mothers estate, and she looks the part.

She's decked herself out in a black gown with a plunging back and long, pale opera gloves, her hair piled into an elegant chignon at the top of her head.

She lets Napoleon drape the bugged-necklace around her neck himself.

“I know,” He says.


	4. Chapter 4

Napoleon starts the evening with every intention to stay huddled on the rooftop as Gaby's backup, with nothing more than a gun and an oversized radio antennae for company. He really does.

But then Illya goes and gets himself fucking shot. 

Napoleon is on the roof of an adjacent building, watching the gallery through the huge, ornate windows of the penthouse suite and keeping an eye on Gaby as she wends her way through crowd. 

It's rather elaborate for black market trading, Napoleon thinks as he watches the party-goers, glittering with jewels and ornately draped in the latest fashions, silhouetted against the orange glow of the lights spilling out into the Parisian night. Not that he's complaining—watching beautiful boys and girls dressed to the nines and indulging in a bit of a good time is infinity better than the alternatives: getting chased through east Berlin by an angry giant. Being whipped off a speeding boat into the frigid ocean. Scooping said angry giant from the murky depths of said frigid ocean. 

In the glare of the sparkling party lights, Napoleon almost doesn't see the movement through the windows of the dimly-lit floor underneath the gallery. He looks again, squinting into the darkness, half-certain he'd imagined it.

But no. There is a man stalking carefully toward the guards stationed by the stairway, moving smoothly under the cover of the shadows in a way that brings to mind the tightly-coiled intent of some monstrous cat on the trail of its prey. 

Napoleon is certain it must be Illya, and when the man moves to peer around a corner, turning his face briefly to the window, Napoleon sees that he is right.

They are separated by less than thirty feet of rooftop and a narrow alleyway between the buildings. 

Napoleon is just thinking how convenient the darkened shadows of the rooftop are-- because there is no way Illya will look out and spot him-- when Illya looks out and spots him, because lady luck has been a prodigiously abysmal dick to Napoleon as of late.

“Solo?” Illya says, with one of those frowns that, in Napoleon's experience, indicates either confusion or that Illya is about three seconds away from breaking something.

Unfortunately, this exchange catches the attention of Illya's quarry. 

One of the guards by the stairway shouts, pointing out to the rooftop. It's followed quickly by a bullet. Even through the silencer, the noise of the shot is loud and echoing as the shattered glass of the window rains down, tinkling into the alleyway. 

Napoleon ducks, upholstering his gun to return fire. 

There is a pained roar from somewhere in Illya's vicinity, and when Napoleon pokes his head out from behind the low wall at the edge of the rooftop, Illya has vanished from sight. The guards are picking their way carefully forward—not a good sign.

Without thinking too much about what he is about to do, Napoleon backs away from the wall in a crouch, one eye on the guards as he sizes up the balcony directly across the alley way. 

He should be able to make it—should be. Then it will be easy enough to pass through the window and into the corridor at Illya's back. There, he can provide covering fire and, if needed, drag Illya to safety before taking out five guards with—Napoleon tallies quickly in his head—two bullets left in the magazine. And no time to grab the extra ammunition stashed in his bag, ten yards back.

Right. Just a regular Tuesday night then, He thinks to himself. Easy.

With a flying leap, Napoleon clears the narrow gap between the two buildings, catching the lip of the balcony with his palms scraping hard against the concrete as he scrambles for purchase. 

For one, heart-stopping second Napoleon is certain he's about to fall as his foot slips. He has to throw his upper body over the ledge,flopping to safety with an undignified grunt—hardly the most glamorous entrance, but infinity better than smashing his skull open against the cobblestones below. 

He uses the forward momentum to heave his legs over and kick in the window. 

Ducking through, rolling tight and close to the floor to minimize the potential target provided by his body, Napoleon makes his way toward his partner. He rises to a crouch in front of Illya, returning fire down the hall and forcing the foremost guards to duck back around the corner.

“Solo,” Illya says, looking up at Napoleon from where he's hunched in on himself against the wall. 

It had looked a lot worse from the other building. The bullet just grazed Illya's forearm, so apparently ducking out of sight had not been Illya seeking petty revenge by giving Napoleon a goddamn heart attack, but only a practical measure—stemming the flow of blood so the gun wouldn't slip from his hand. 

Napoleon is so relieved that he hardly notices when Illya reaches up to pluck the pocket square from Napoleon's jacket.

“What, no 'cowboy'?” Napoleon's magazine is spent, so he reaches down to grab Illya's gun from slack fingers.

Somewhat worryingly, Illya just lets him, staring up with a frown and that familiar, simmering anger as he proceeds to bleed all over Napoleon's favorite pocket square. He winds the silk tight around the long gash just above his wrist as Napoleon fires at the guards creeping back down the hall, winging one and sending the rest scattering for cover.

In the brief respite, Napoleon glances down to check Illya over.

Illya looks gaunter than he remembers, and the dark circles under his eyes are like bruises. 

Napoleon hates the story he can read in the weariness of Illya's face. In the actual bruises rising, yellowing and ugly, from under the collar of his turtleneck. Illya's been going all out, running himself ragged without his team to watch his back. 

He hates it and he wants to ask what the hell Illya had been thinking, that same frustrated anger he’d felt on the plane returning with a vengeance.

Because how had Illya survived as long as he had anyway? When his response to any problem always seemed to be to throw himself at it, oblivious to the jagged edges left behind when your go-to method is to smash the ever-loving shit out of everything.

But Illya is just looking up at Napoleon with a perplexed frown. Like he doesn't understand what Napoleon is doing there. Like he didn't think Napoleon would come.

If he had the time to spare, Napoleon would feel a little awful about that. But the guards creeping down the hallway and the bullet that hisses through the air not two inches from Napoleon's ear are compelling arguments for brevity.

“Peril--” is as far as he gets.

Because instead of responding to Napoleon's sudden appearance with words or, frankly, any semblance of sanity, Illya snatches Napoleon's combat knife from where it's strapped to Napoleon's side, rolls down the hallway, and takes out the remaining three guards with horrifying efficiency before breaking into a sprint toward the stairway.

Napoleon swears under his breath before following, because honestly, fucking Peril. 

Which is when, from somewhere upstairs, Gaby screams. 

\--

When Napoleon had left the roof, Gaby had been well out of harms way, chatting with potential buyers in the main room. So it had seemed safe to leave the bulky and cumbersome antennae behind to come to the aid of Illya.

It's a decision Napoleon regrets as he races after his partner, skidding around the corner and lunging towards the stairs. He takes the steps two at a time, emerging into a dim corridor that connects the main gallery space to a smaller, private room from which the scream came. Illya is nowhere in sight.

Napoleon starts off down the hallway, Illya's gun steady in his hand.

From down the hallway comes the sound of shuffling feet, and the click-clack of stiletto heels, followed by the heavy thump of a body being slammed against the wall. Napoleon pauses just outside the doorway, ears straining as he tries to map out the best entry strategy. 

Napoleon is so engrossed that he doesn't register the movement behind him until it's too late. 

Suddenly, a pair of arms reach out from the darkness, wrapping around Napoleon and dragging him backward into the shadows behind an alcoved statue of a particularly ugly wood nymph. One enormous hand clamps over his mouth and the other traps the gun against Napoleon's chest.

For one second of pure, white-out panic, Napoleon twists, crazy and frantic. Then his training kicks in. 

He tries to bring up an elbow to drive backward into his assailant, but he doesn't have any real leverage and the blow thumps uselessly against his attacker's stomach without any force behind it. When that doesn't work, he tries to ram his foot into the man's instep, but he's too slow.

“It's me,” Says the man, easily sidestepping Napoleon's kick. But Napoleon isn't listening. 

He finally twists just far enough to jam an elbow into the man's diaphragm. 

His efforts are rewarded by a pained: “Ooof,” but the grip doesn’t loosen.

“Stop,” Says the man, a little winded but otherwise not much put-out. “Stop, Cowboy. It's me.”

Napoleon freezes.

“Okay?” Illya takes his hand off Napoleon's mouth.

“Dammit Peril,” Napoleon hisses, trying to pry Illya's arm from where it's still pinioning his right hand to his chest. It's like trying to bend an iron bar. “Dammit--let me go. We have to go. Gaby--”

“Is fine,” Illya says. “Listen.”

From not ten feet away, a man mutters something, voice too low to make out the words. Gaby shrieks, letting out a seemingly delighted peal of laughter. 

Like that, all the fight goes out of Napoleon: Gaby's safe. She's ok. 

He sinks back into Illya's grip, played out and bewildered. What the hell is going on? Illya wasn't surprised to find Gaby here. Had Illya been expecting her? 

Napoleon twists both hands tighter into the fabric of Illya’s sleeve until Illya finally releases the hold on his right wrist. 

Illya steps back, not even attempting to retrieve the gun as he gives Napoleon a wide berth to right his mussed suit and smooth back a few stray pieces of hair. 

Once he’s put himself more-or-less in order, it’s easier to ask: “Peril. Would you mind filling me in here? I seem to be missing a few key details.”

–

“So,” Napoleon paces in front of Illya, who is leaning casually next to the giant, cumbersome radio antennae at Napoleon's original rooftop position. He is regarding Napoleon with a look that is equal parts concern and wry bemusement, Napoleon's pocket square still wrapped tight around his forearm.

“So,” Napoleon says. “The two of you are on an U.N.C.L.E. mission to retrieve a stolen audio recording?”

Illya nods.

With a small, inarticulate noise of frustration Napoleon rolls his eyes so hard that the momentum carries him to the edge of the roof. He rests his raw hands on the low wall, turning from the warm glow of the gallery and out toward the city. 

“She let me think you had gone rogue--on some crazed revenge mission,” Napoleon looks out on the starry, twinkling lights of Paris instead of Illya. “But you’re both here on official business.”

Below Napoleon, the city is inviting, sparkling and bright. To Napoleon's side, Illya watches, pensive and inscrutable in the dark of the night. The intensity of his gaze is almost a physical weight on Napoleon's skin. 

“For me, it is both,” Illya finally says with a shrug, crossing his arms as he watches Napoleon from under the brim of that stupid cap.

The receiver for Gaby’s microphone crackles as her companion says something sickeningly cloying and Gaby laughs. 

“For Gaby too,” Illya adds.

Napoleon turns back from the skyline. 

He briefly considers sitting on one of the raised frames of the skylights like Illya is doing before he sees how absolutely filthy it is and elects to stand instead. Napoleon’s all for camaraderie, but he’s wearing Loro Piana and there are some stains that even that even his favorite little dry cleaning shop on the lower east side can’t undo.

Illya says nothing.

It's a silence that Napoleon isn't really certain how to fill. 

There are a lot of things Napoleon wants to say: no one has ever done anything like this for me before. I’m sorry I avoided you for so long, I never wanted you to think I blamed you for what happened. Do you blame me for what happened? Do you still want to work with me?

Napoleon opens his mouth to speak, hesitates. Damn. Normally he's better at this. 

Illya just looks up at Napoleon like he’s being infuriatingly, deliberately stupid--almost the same look he’d given Napoleon after seeing Rudy take a spin in that god-awful, sadist's wet-dream of an electric chair. Finally, he takes pity.

“We are a team, cowboy,” Illya says, simple as that. 

The receiver crackles with static and the short, flat retort of a gun being fired. Once. Twice. Three times.

“I have the tape,” Gaby says, her disembodied voice floating, tiny and flattened, through the radio. “And it’s done. He's dead.”

Illya stands. 

No one would call Napoleon short and he’s not exactly a lightweight. He's not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, so it’s still a weird experience for him--to be so completely towered over.

Five-thousand feet tall and slow enough to give Napoleon the chance to bolt, Illya reaches out. Gentle like he is with Gaby, he wraps an enormous hand around the back of Napoleon's neck, squeezing in brief reassurance.

“This is what teams do.”

\--

Back at his and Gaby's hotel suite, Napoleon sips a generous glass of scotch and looks out across the city from his seat on the sprawling, excessively-pillowed bed. 

Their flight back to the states leaves in the morning. 

Gaby is doing—well Napoleon doesn't actually know what Gaby is doing most of the time, and certainly not now. And Illya, despite his apparent rejection of all things even remotely hinting of luxury, is quite happily making use of the suite's luxurious bathroom, since the shower in his own, brutally utilitarian room across town was 'not working, cowboy'.

Napoleon rests his elbows on his knees, rubbing the palm of his hand along the back of his neck. 

The seductive idea springs to his mind, unbidden and unwanted. It's been trailing in the wake of every thought since he and Gaby touched down in France. Just under the surface, prickling under the skin.

Napoleon still has connections in the city. He could disappear. Christ, it'd be even easier than in New York. No one would ever find him. Not U.N.C.L.E. or Waverly. Not Gaby. Not Illya.

Instead of further entertaining the thought, Napoleon and his glass of scotch wander back into the main room of the suite. 

Gaby and Illya are seated on the couch. Gaby is in her pajamas and Illya is wearing only a pair of loose, lounge-style pants. His hair is damp from the shower, plastered dark against his head. His naked feet curl into the carpet as he patiently submits to Gaby's focused ministrations. She is just tying off a line of neat stitches along his forearm as Napoleon approaches. 

The moment feels intimate. Napoleon, an intruder. 

Without the turtleneck, Illya's pale skin is a patchwork of bruises, yellows and purples and greens that twist along his ribs and up his chest to his neck. Illlya doesn't look up, but Gaby locks eyes with Napoleon, steady as her hands when she'd pulled the trigger.

_Stay_ , a small hand slots into his own to pull him down. _Stay._

He sets his glass on the table, grabbing for the first aid kit from the table as he settles on the sofa next to them. 

\--

They’re supposed to travel back separately--Illya and Gaby posing as a nouveau riche young couple up front while Napoleon pretends to be a businessman in back.

Two hours into the flight, Napoleon strolls confidently up the plane--no one, he’s come to realize, is particularly inclined to stop a man wearing a good suit, an expensive tie, and an expression of self-assurance. 

Illya and Gaby have a row to themselves, with a seat between them. Gaby has stretched out to put her feet in Illya’s lap. They’re both, to all appearances, asleep.

But Gaby cracks an eye open as Napoleon pauses, hovering .

Instead of saying anything she shifts, reaching out a hand to pull Napoleon down into the empty space between them. 

Gaby repositions her legs over Napoleon. llya, without opening his eyes, smiles a little as Napoleon curls into his seat. 

No one says anything about how potentially stupid it is to be seen together. Or anything about how Napoleon has secreted away a massive crate of purloined art somewhere below them in the cargo bay. 

Beautiful things, Napoleon thinks as he settles in between Gaby and Illya, deserve admiration. 

Napoleon reaches out his hands—one to wrap around Gaby's calf and the other to knock companionably against Illya's on the hand rest—finally, to touch.


End file.
